Universal Escape Heros: The Undertaker
by Christiaan Lombard
Summary: Denreck the Undertaker is what people called him, he wanted to escape but he didn't know that his escape would eventually lead him to one of the biggest conflicts between human, preditor, aliens, and the unknown forces controlling the three.
1. Prolouge

Prologue

_Raining, it's always is raining. Drips of grey cement dripped down in front of the houses window. The sad part was that the renovations on her have been systematically sabotaged by the rain and the cement washes into her garden, the farm on which she stands was slaved tirelessly to make a profit on. Life on this planet was dull, this planet being sector 511Teenith 20478 or as it is called by the locals, Genero. Life was hardly easy here; this place was a back water trash planet where no one went unless they didn't want to be found._

_You would think that this place would be alive with technology and bustle since the main population consisted of convicts, criminals, and the general shady person but no, not one of those fool thought that the planet their flying to was basically a wet desert._

_Never heard of the wet desert? We'll let's just say it's always raining but nothing grows. Scientists, those who brought us here in the first place, didn't realize that the soil didn't have any dead material in it, so plants refused to grow. _

_So how did she get a garden you ask? We'll I did say you needed dead things for things the plants to grow didn't I…_

_So I trudged down to that house dragging along my booty bag. Denreck the Undertaker was my job, life and name in the town. I had seen the worst of the things on this awful planet and one of them caused the poor soul in this bag to be dead. It's not my problem why he died, who he was or what his story was. It is my job to just take the dead to the farm to be fertilized._

_So you just sit there and listen to my story of how I got this dam body and all the trouble this darned thing cost me._

Authors Note

Hello to all Predator, Human, Alien, and general fun with the galaxy fans! We all love reading about our favorite warrior nation of Predators and so do I so don't worry read and enjoy the fun as we follow the unlikely hero Denreck as he paves his way into the history books. There's way more to come and feel free to comment, criticize or bow down and worship my attempt at fan glory.

Please enjoy my first fan fiction and don't forget to put on your 3D glasses.

Disclaimer

I do not own the Alien or Predator or Alien vs. Predator licenses, copy writes or any otherwise connected articles. That is the property of 20th Centaury Fox and not me. I do own the story and its characters and I'm 100 percent certain that I conjured them up for the delight of the people reading it.


	2. Bad Day

Chapter 1

Bad Day

Don't know who killed the senator but someone wanted me gone. As I think back on it they probably wanted something I stole more then they wanted me. You see life as an undertaker is quite boring and little profit is to be had. So like my fathers before me I stole what I could from the dead before covering them up for good.

It was on one occasion that my curiosity got the best of me when they brought a high class man to my company to be cremated. The government officials had temporarily relieved me of my duties as undertaker and politically asked me to not attend the cremation of one Senator Abel Hensford the third. This guy had been in the news lately for some scandal in the government ten years ago as new evidence mysteriously resurfaced... They didn't expect me to use my connections to hire a cleaning staff suit and sneak in the morgue. The senator was in a box on a counter near the oven, it was nearly time for the cremation, so I opened the lid only to realize I had a big problem. The problem was that guy wasn't in the coffin. I knew my life was getting shorter and shorter as suited men walked into the room.

Now not to boast but undertaking does build a lot of muscle and my father had insisted that I become a physically fit person. This didn't stop the two men from giving me one of the hardest fights of my life. Where was I…? O yes, they entered into the room. They were two armed professionals but they obviously weren't ready to use their weapons as they were clipped into their bolts on the sides of their flex suits. Kicked the first one in the sensitive region and started my fist fight with the second. He was slow and he broke and dented things where his punches missed me. He was obviously cyborg so the underhandedly maneuver I pulled on his friend wouldn't work on him. I decided I wanted to keep my bones the way they were supposed to be, in one piece, so was time to use his size and strength to his disadvantage.

I jumped over the tables and chairs in the room trying to get to the power unit on the opposite wall. He just charged right through those things like they weren't even there. He had gained a lot of momentum and was almost on top of me. Using a bit of luck and a lot of energy, that seemed to come from nowhere, I dodged his punch and elbowed him in his back sending him surging into the power unit. The power unit, not used to the stresses of a huge man crashing into it broke apart and proceeded to electrocute him. Like most cyborgs he was only improving the important things about his body so he was all bulk but no brains. So I picked up the gun that had conveniently fallen off his body and turned around. I was careless to not go after the other man who had now gotten up and was pointing a gun at me.

The ironic part of this mans death was that he probably was the brains in the little duo that had stormed the room. He had forgotten to do the one thing people do first when they want to shoot someone, put the safety off. I was then responsible for two men dieing. I needed a plan fast other that running out of the building. That's how you kill yourself. I decided to give myself some extra time. I climbed upon the table in the corner of the room where a video camera was mounted and shot the supports off. Aiming the camera at the empty box I walked over and started the motor on a conveyor belt running into the oven and placed the box on it with some effort and got in closing the lid.

It must have puzzled the authorities to no end why they saw footage of me committing a fiery suicide. Obviously I'm here and alive and well. So how did I do it? It is easy to make people believe what they want to and the authorities wanted me dead so I died for them, on the doctored tape that I made in the Control Room. It was so easy; I got out of the box, stopped the conveyor belt, moved the box backwards a bit, and started the conveyor belt again. Then I walked into the unmanned Control Room and using a bit of ingenuity I edited out the whole scene to make it look like I died. Grabbing the real video I stashed it my pocket. I then broke into the ventilation system and traveled downwards until I got to the basement tripping out at the end; falling on my face. The tape clattered away from me and into a pile of junk. I didn't have time to find it. The previous owner must have had problems with the law because conveniently there was an escape route leading into the city sewers.

Sounds like I was off the hook don't it? The authorities where pleased to let this case go but the men after me which I had a suspicion at that time that they were secret service had far from given up. The nasty thing about cyborgs is that they have digital memories, so the secret service knew about my escape fairly quickly.

I read then from the side panel that the gun I was holding was called the SF44 Pulse Cannon, I'm so meticulous with details that I have to remember technical things, which didn't seem to be something that you could buy in any gun shop since it was as heavy as a mallet. I was barely prepared for the sewers since it is known as the hot spot in the city for crime, black markets, and cheap conversions from person to cyborg. I needed all three if I was going to get out of the city. I also needed cash. I had a feeling someone wanted to talk to me when I felt hit hard on the back of my head.

Being unconscious doesn't necessarily mean that you don't feel pain so it was when I woke up I began to feel the extent to which my body was tossed about during transit. What hurt most was my face! I was in some kind of white interrogation room where I was the main attraction. What I felt like didn't seem to matter to the person sitting across a metal table in front of me. They asked me questions of where I was from and who I knew while punching me around for good measure. I figured that they wanted to ransom me off to someone important so I took that chance to give them fake names and the details of my work as a place to call to.

Luck seemed to be on my side that day because it was a secret service man who answered that call. It didn't take long for shouts and screams of agony to flare up on the radios the men in the interview room where holding. This placed them in a particular position; they could run and possibly live or kill me and increase their chance of being killed by whatever was killing the people causing the screams on the radio. They chose to run, and run fast they did. I heard their screams of pain as the door was closing only to be muted as it finally shut.

Tied to the chair I struggled with the cuffs on my hands which were getting me nowhere fast. So I decided to use more of a brute method to get the cuffs off, I rammed myself and the chair into a nearby wall. It took four attempts to break the plastic chair apart. I wasted no time and charged out the door, what I saw was pure carnage.

There were dead people everywhere, why they didn't enter into the interview room I still don't know but I decided that it was a good opportunity to load up on guns and grab some cash. I did a bit of careful exploring and discovered the mother of all hover cars in the docking bay. Well it was more of a ship then a hover car because it was the size of a small building but it oozed a metallic government official aura. It was so very nice of the government officials to leave the thing open and inside was a stockpile of Pulse cannons. I grabbed the seat in the cockpit and started the machine up, or at least tried to. Alarms went off and I realized how stupid it is to try and steal ships nowadays. I didn't really have a choice, I needed a key and they had it, so I was going to have to kill them for it.

Not having much time to prepare I decided that I would topple the rack with the pulse cannons on it in front of the oval door leading into the ship so that I could lean the heavy guns on it in a makeshift turret. It wasn't long after that the doors to the docking bay started to open and waves of minions pushed through the narrow gap.

I was facing a mass of over 100 robots and cyborgs but they had to get through those tiny doors to get to me. I was doing quite well and wasted about 6 guns on them when the most awful looking thing appeared behind the 100 dead in the door way. It was a sentinel. Sentinels are basically huge robots with bullet proof amour; it did faintly resemble a gorilla, and 10 tons of weight behind each punch. Life really liked making things difficult for me. The colossal thing proceeded to walk straight through the door way towards the ship stopping a short distance from the ship stopping squarely in front of the ship. It then began to broadcast its message.

"Mr. Denreck Powens please disarm yourself and you will not be annihilated…" it droned on about to make a 5 minute long speech.

I was in no way ready to play their games which would only result in my death anyway. I began to search for a way out.

"…your amnesty will be assured if you leave now and concede to a mind wipe and strategic relocation into a new life…" it continued.

Something then caught my eye, a chair in the back in front of a screen, looked like a way to solve my little problem.

"You have 10 seconds to reply. 10 9 8 7 6…" it said abruptly stopped by a single reply from me.

The reply was simply my telling the robot how very dead it was by blowing it into oblivion with a turret I managed to get operational in the ship. As I walked past the smoldering wreckage of the sentinel I looted the corpses and walked back, key in hand.


	3. China man

Chapter 2

China man

When life gets shorter you pick up bad habits, mine was smoking. I had a lot of money but it was pocket change compared to what I needed for a change job on myself. I needed someone good because I can be quite persuasive sometimes. Tracking down a guy can be difficult, especially when he is someone who is ten times more wanted by the law then you are. It had been about 3 weeks since I escaped in my government vehicle and I had been very happy when I discovered the cloaking ability it offered. I wasn't happy to find that they had been tracking it as I flew around the city, but there was no time to get it removed because I had a date with a crooked cyborg fitment official who I had wired a considerable down payment to get my body augmented with cyborg eyes, legs, arms and armor in my skin.

As I flew down and landed on the roof of his penthouse he escorted me to his private lab inside. It was clean and metallic, every scientist dream home laboratory with bad paintings on the walls of scientific instruments. Walking through multiple sets of double doors we came to a small surgery amphitheater whit all the shiny tools nearby on a hover trolley. Putting out my cigarette out on the wall next to the door I ignored the garbage chute and threw it into a grate below it. The doctor spoke to me in kind words soothing me onto the table and put the plastic mask on me. As I began to pass out the doctor pulled out his tools and probably did his business on my legs with his big circular saw.

The thing with waking up from any surgery is the slight stage where you are unaware of your surroundings. This was quite prolonged with me as I woke up only to see nothing. I couldn't move my arms or my legs, they were not there!

Obviously the doctor was a little more connected then he put on as I now could be regarded as a detained individual owing to the fact that I was a quadriplegic. It's a pity I didn't know this as I moved faster to discover a way to escape.

The table proved my saving grace as it had controls on the side next to my head. Using a bit of snake-like movements I put myself into a fetal position in which I nudged the buttons with my nose trying to find the right one. Eventually I found the two I wanted, tilt front and tilt back.

What I planned was to vault myself towards the door and worm myself to safety. So I hit the tilt back button and pushed it so that I was ready to be catapulted. I hit the switch and the gears reared bumping me towards my oblivion. What I didn't expect was that maybe I had figured directions wrong and that I would be vaulting myself on the wall next to the door. After recovering from hitting the wall headfirst I tasted the taste of tobacco, my face was on the grating I previously threw a cigarette into. Suddenly inspiration hit me harder then that wall did.

When one is pushed by life to survive one accomplishes amazing things. I wormed my way around the room looking for things to elevate my self on and I found a box and a chair which I skidded along the floor to the wall using my teeth and climbed up. At this point, before throwing myself into the chute I contemplated how much it would hurt tumbling down the shaft.

It hurt a lot. I think it hurt especially because I landed on my already battered face. The garbage 'I landed in was like the cherry on the cake as I couldn't see anything already and now the sense of smell was surely going to go but at least the filthy squishy garbage stopped me from dieing. Even better was the massive piece of garbage someone decided to get rid of hitting me in the chest and knocking me out.

So it was after that that I finally could see again after I woke up in a strange bed with a smiling old man looking at me as I opened my eyes. He introduced himself as the china man and vaguely referred to his daughter as Novi. He spared no gruesome detail about how he found me in yesterday's shipment of garbage to his lot and he thought I was dead. Luckily his daughter noticed the breathing and after nagging her father he agreed to save me. The bad part was that he wanted a reward for saving his life and for the temporary fix he did on my body. The thing is that I was so beaten up by the events of yesterday that I lost my ability to speak. I also had to relearn how to walk since my first time getting out of bed my arms hardly moved and I fell onto the floor smashing my already grizzly face. It wasn't long before I could hobble around enough to do anything.

He must have saved people here before because after a week he ordered me to work. He was almost a slave driver the way he worked the other people in the garbage lot. I got paired up with a weird looking guy with an eye-patch and a smooth shiny head. He was called Shiner and was the mobile magnetic crane operator. He also was a shady customer and was the bosses second in command. I was only working with him since with the cyborg parts attached to me I would have to push the crane around since it had no engine. Pushing with me were the brain dead robots of the garbage yard that were obviously the security at night. They put me there to provide a bit more brains to the pushing effort and since any other jobs involving fine work were beyond my new arms hands capabilities.

The only person who seemed to give a dam about anyone or anything was the China man's daughter Novi. Novi was the one who fixed me up with my legs and arms. She said she was especially proud of the eyes as connecting those up needed a bit of book work. It happened by accident that I learned how to manage my parts as they would wear out and she complained that I wasn't oiling or cleaning them. It was actually not as bad as what had happened before to me when I was working at the garbage yard but all good things must come to an end, this one wasn't especially good.

It came about 2 months later that I found an article in a news paper lying in Novi's workshop. It basically said that I had been implicated as the bomber in the mass murder of a whole lot of politicians at one of their conventions the previous day. I needed to leave immediately for my own safety as the people in the yard were suspiciously away today which meant they were trying to bust me. I hoped that she hadn't seen it yet and threw the paper in the trash can near by.

The China man was probably in on it too as he suddenly had promoted me to operating the magnetic crane and gave me the remote control, with its big magnet on/off button, which I slipped in my pocket. That night I was going to have to skip out on the place. So as I got used to moving the crane back and forth picking up junk around the place a single black hover car sped towards me and stopped nearby. It seemed I had run out of time. A man in a suit came out of the car and to my surprise he looked just like me.

I didn't have any guns or weapons but that didn't stop him from asking that I come away with him calmly. He then smiled! I never smile, not even when I get new things and his face wasn't as messed up as mine. They must have cloned me from the arms and legs that evil doctor took off me and used that to make a clone who then went on a rampage.

I had about enough of the fun and games these guys were playing with me so I decided running away were better then fighting a clone of me. So as I just started to run I was grabbed from behind and thrown on the floor. I was actually stupid to think that the government would send only one guy. Nope, they sent one to distract and one to capture.

I felt especially stupid as I was handcuffed by the one who was probably showing off because he bent a steel pipe around my one arm and then around the other. Dam, they were stupider but stronger versions of me. I felt uncomfortable lying on my side on the ground because the controller was sticking into my side, that's when I got a bit of inspiration.

The crane was teetering overhead us so I decided a bit of temptation was necessary.

"Hey you, Clone guys! Yes you come here I've got to tell you something tell your boss."

The two of them ambled down towards me and as they got near I did something I rarely ever do, I smiled.

So it was after I defeated them I realized exactly how stupid my plan was and how lucky I was. When I hit the switch it sucked all of us up. So I landed on the one guy with the iron pipe handcuffs on his neck but the other guy landed behind me and was swearing profusely. It didn't take long for the one guy to choke to death but in planning I didn't foresee how I would switch the dam magnet off. So the other guy next to me died as well as a large chunk of metal impaled him to the magnet. It felt quite painful being cut by many tiny bits of razor sharp scrap metal but that was nothing compared to the large sheet of corrugated iron that smacked across my chest.

Luckily Novi heard the fuss and eventually turned the dam thing off manually and I landed on my face. She was definitely an angel because not only did she save me twice but she even salvaged the parts of the other cyborgs and I got myself better eyes; color vision was a nice change of pace, these ones where actually blue like my original eyes. I couldn't possibly pay her back for how she treated me and she said it would help if I left before more trouble came my way. She even lent me a spare ship that she had fixed up and I did the whole manly thing and promised to return all the nice things she did to me back in double. So that was how I started my escape from earth.


	4. Escape

Chapter 3

Escape

_So anyway getting back to my story of life on Genero, I had just walked down to the building and I was glad that my night shift was over and I could take a break. Still don't know how I did it but somehow I ended up being the only thing close enough to law enforcement on the whole planet. I threw down my prize for the day but this one wasn't the normal crook who went too far and had to be "taken care of". This guy caused me some pain. I dragged the bag along the floor and greeted Miss Q with a wave as I trudged by in my boots and she joined in too. We both walked through to the back of the room and I lifted the bag onto the table. I unzipped the bag and Miss Q let out a gasp of surprise…_

Escaping from earth isn't as easy as just getting in a ship and blasting off but apparently no one had ever told me that before. As I began to exit the stratosphere a message blared across the cabin.

"Ship DD1214 please identify yourself and stay at a steady altitude until you're out of atmosphere route can be confirmed, over."

I didn't know any of the space pilot language or even how to reply. Having no real alternative I decided to speed up as fast as I could.

"DD1214 please identify yourself or you will be shot down I repeat please identify yourself, over"

The ship wobbled and shook as I gave it more and more power. Warning lights and beeps flared everywhere on the ship as I reached the upper atmosphere. On a little screen to my left two little blips were moving fast towards the ship. Panicking I decided that hitting every button on the console might help, instead I set a course to 511Teenith and my ship blasted off at an even faster rate. The good news was that the blips and the alarms disappeared; the bad news was I had no idea where I was going.

Kicking the console for the 5 time that hour I realized that the thing wasn't going to change its course and I was stuck there for who knows how long, that's when I noticed the large structure looming ahead. It was a giant ring, just like on the television programs, and it was also a jump gate. This one was looked different somehow. There were masses of ships going in and out but there didn't seem to be any payment station. Later I found out that this particular jump gate was stolen and manned by crime lords and feuded over by gangs.

This meant that any criminal could use it and it sure did look busy. Going through the jump gate isn't actually very scary, you feel the same going through it as you go in. The only odd part of going through it is like stepping through your mirror at home, you're on the other side but you don't feel like you've crossed at all.

Life really must have disliked me a lot because my ship crash landed itself into the middle of town and the main gang lord's mansion. For some reason, the more stinking rich you get as a criminal, the more you value your pets. So when I crashed into his special room for his pets and squished them all, he was especially angry. Still not owning any kind of weapon at all I was easily apprehended and locked in a room. That's when I met the crafty Miss Q, or her real name Queen Anderson, who was the town's undertaker who came into the room with the gang lord and some of the other gang members. Miss Q looked pale when she saw me and didn't look at me very often. The gang lord never took his eyes off me as he ordered his me to take out their rifles and prepare to shoot me.

I can only think after they were done shooting me Miss Q took me away to here house and prepared the autopsy. What she didn't however expect was me turning my head and asking her whether she minded giving me something to drink.

"You've come back from the dead!" she shrieked grabbing for her gun and pointing at me.

After she recovered a bit more of her pose and poured me a glass of whiskey she explained that a few days ago she had seen someone similar looking brought in here dead. That when she started to explain a bit of her business to me and why there will never be any graves on Genero.

It was about 40 years ago that scientists found Genero and were exited by the fact that it had a stable atmosphere, a moderate climate, and had water. They didn't think about how they were going to grow plants on a planet that had a 36 hour night and day where it became a wet desert at night and a dry desert in the day but never reaching high or low temperatures. All it lacked was the dead material to grow food. After the scientists imported dead people which were cheaper and more nourishing to the ground when minced in with compost. What they didn't count on was the criminals and gangs coming through the gate and setting up a home base here. They tried to stop any more coming through but the criminals simply took over the planet and the jump gate inadvertently making their own criminal nation. Soon the population was bursting with people dieing from crime and gang related murders and the farming industry took off like a rocket. This was all due to Miss Q's ingenious idea to monopolize the market and beat out the competition early and made her quick million.

It was a pity she was soon outdone by a rival business that used a cloning facility to make all the "fertilizer" they would ever need. So then she just took up being an undertaker and head of the town's morgue and would sell her bodies that she got "naturally" from town to the bigger company for an adequate sum.

It's just that the new crime lord decided he wanted a piece of the action and has been moving in on her and trying to take over the morgue. She took a swig of whiskey and then said that they were coming in a week's time to forcefully take it from her if she didn't give it up. Don't think of me as a bad person for saying this but I really wanted to just run, run like I always did because that got you away from trouble the fastest. The rain outside the house started hammering on the roof harder.

She asked me how I landed up on Genero and I described the larger details of my trip from earth. The thing was that she was a smarter person then she put on because she offered to give me her ship and teach me how to fly it if I did two things for her. The first would be to work for her for 6 months and the second would be to destroy the clone factory even though it would kill the planet ability to sustain itself because it was just a rotting pile of corpses. Grimly I agreed and after a few days was sent off to work.

My job was to go to the locations in town and bring back at least 4 dead people a day in whatever way I could. She didn't want me to get shot up again so she lent me some gear: a big black trench coat with a hood, large boots and a big rifle all which belonged to her husband who sadly also became part of the fertilizer on the planet.

I walked out the front door and into the rain, sloshing up a hill past fields of green houses. They all had tinted windows for the day time and the panels at the top were moveable to let rain in at night. I got to the top of a hill which was also the boundary of her land and looked back only to realize that her house was in the middle of a fairly small crater. Continuing on I walked on down the slope to a road where I walked for 15 minutes until I got into town. It was actually more like a city but shouldn't really be regarded as that since it doesn't really have any order to it. Since I was going to need to find dead people I figured hanging out at the bars and pubs was a good idea. I wasn't even inside a club yet and someone was shot by the bouncer. So I use this opportunity to pick him up onto my shoulder only to have someone point a gun in my back.

"I'll be taking that mister since you don't seem to want him as much as I do" said a voice behind me. I was really going to up my game if I wanted my ship out of here.

So I turned around and threw the dead guy onto him pinning him to the floor. He did want him that badly and the crowd even laughed at him. The situation only got worse when three of his buddies showed up riding in on a sort of hover sled some dead guys on it that I took out my rifle and they took out theirs. The crowd seemed to realize that this was going to be a shoot off and all started cheering names and such. Apparently shoot offs were a common thing and people got a name for themselves by entering into these battles. One of the more intelligent looking lackeys announced himself and his friends and the "shoot-em-up brothers" and demanded a name from me. Thinking for a name I replied.

"My name is Denrek! Denrek the Undertaker"

So then they organized that one of their gang will shoot off his pistol in the air as the beginning of the fire fight. I knew they wouldn't play fair and that's just what they did. Instead of firing into the air to start the fire fight the lackey fired a shot at me. As if my actions were controlled by something else, instinct took over. Acting fast I rolled to the left and watched his head explode from him with one rifle blast. That gun had a massive kick and as luck would have knocked me flat so that their bullets whizzed over me as they took cover behind a pile of trash. The second shot blew one of their legs off and he screamed in pain as the last two shot with more enthusiasm as none of their bullets hit me. I rolled more to the right and hid behind a car. I reached for my bullet satchel and loaded two bullets into the two barrels and I killed the third one by placing my gun on the cars bonnet and sniped him in the chest. The other screamed curses at me so I shot him in the mouth. There was almost no noise after the last shot except for the whimpering of the last one alive who was bleeding to death and the pattering of rain.

I think killing those men was more in self defense but the last guy was dying from that leg wound so I had to put him out of his misery. No one wept for them or cheered for me; they all just went back to their lives and reformed the line in front of the bar. I took the sled, loaded up the 5 dead men onto the back, looted the corpses, and sped off into the night.

I got some pretty useful items off the bodies: some cash, bullet proof amour for my torso, some automatic rifles and pistols, a grenade, and a bottle of beer. Miss Q was impressed with my yield as she hadn't expected me to take on 4 people in a firefight and survive. She lighted a cigarette and gave me a strange look. I was just glad that I had a place to stay.


	5. Kill or be killed

Chapter 4

Kill or be killed

It was after the Gang Lord decided to make his "visit" to the house that the bad things started to happen. Somehow word got round that I wasn't dead and I had taken up residence in the Miss Q's house. So the gang lord decided that he would send more then half of his minions to take me down. Word came round to the other criminals in the region and they decided that the fight would be a nice thing to see as a sort of "dinner and a show" event.

So as I prepared my self to chase away a few thugs on the morning that the gang lord decided would be eviction day, I was surprised to see the crater tops filled with people leering down and an army of thugs making dust trails towards the house.

Not sparing any time I shouted something incoherent to Miss Q and she got the general idea that the house was going to be assaulted. Then she surprised me and showed me to a secret room where she had computer screens filled with all sorts of video footage around the crater.

"Now why didn't you think I did with the millions I earned long ago, spent it on beer?" she laughed." I have a plan; this here is a control room for my turrets, rocket launchers, and cannons which you won't need as this is just a small group of baddies. You should probably take this…"

Then she hands me a large gun of some kind called 'Tank breaker' and winks at me puffing on her cigarette again. She also gives me a full body suit of anti-infantry amour, an assortment of rifles, machineguns and pistols and lastly a two way radio so we could keep in touch. She took me to the garage and introduced me to a bulky amour plated machine she called a "war sled". I loaded all the weapons onto her war sled and drove around to the front of the house where I parked it and put all the guns against it. I couldn't help but wonder what an old lady like her was doing with so much fire power. I was ready for a war.

Slowly their ranks spread out in front of the house, they looked menacing. Looking at the army I could see all the manor of vehicles present from tanks to small jeeps. There were foot soldiers and people with explosive weapons. Silence swept across the crater valley. Thinking that I probably wouldn't get to use it I aimed the "Tank Breaker' at the biggest vehicle I saw and clicked the fire button.

Something must have happened because the gun didn't fire and the big vehicle was still standing. They took that as their queue to start the assault.

"How do you shoot the big gun miss Q?!" I screamed over the radio as chunks of the building behind me broke off.

"You don't" she replied calmly.

It was at that moment that a terrific beam of light came down from the sky and struck the ground where the biggest of the tanks was obliterating it and the vehicles nearby with people blasted to the side. Then the beam started to come towards me.

"The gun is a targeting system for a laser on a satellite in orbit over my house. Aim the gun where you want the beam to go; you click to disable the beam again. It only lasts five minutes and takes a half an hour to reload again." She said over the radio probably taking another puff of her cigarette.

So by using the big gun I took out a massive chunk of the attack from the front. That didn't slow down the people on the sides from pushing in and I soon had to start firing my gun. They were coming in a huge swarm like locusts and I was the food but Miss Q was waiting for something as I heard her fidget over the radio. Throwing the smoking rocket launcher to the side I took out some pistols and shot randomly into the crowd now only a field length away. I had taken out most of the tanks with my rocket launcher but the infantry were coming at me still. I took out the two machine guns and squatted down firing both of them with one hand. Being a cyborg was really coming in handy when lifting up the heavy stuff but I was already beginning to feel fatigue. Most of the units in the front were dead but there was something behind the house that I didn't notice until it made its move.

An explosion resounded on the back of the house; I was going to be taken from behind. I hopped on the war sled and zoomed around the back of the house only to find that it wasn't someone blasting the house apart, it was a sentinel. I could have had it easier if those turrets were on.

The dam tank breaker wasn't charged again and I had to defeat that giant thing. It wasted no time showing who was bigger by making a hole in the ground right in front of me. With a bit of effort it pulled its fist out again and swiped at me with the other causing another. It seemed I was going to have to destroy it before it would crush me to survive. Again the rush of instinct shot through me. It pouched again but this time I grabbed onto its arm and crawled onto its shoulder and stood in front of its face. It's almost as if it was payback for all the times that I landed on and destroyed my face that it decapitated itself with a nice smashing sound. I hoped off and walked away as the giant robot toppled over and landed with a puff of smoke.

Seeing me defeat so many of their forces must have scared them off or maybe it was the fact that I nuked them with a big laser beam. Wanting to know what was happening with the miss in the secret room I ran through into the room only to find that she was waiting with a cigarette in her mouth.

"Why didn't you fire the turrets when the sentinel arrived? I could have been killed by that giant thing!"

She pointed to the screen where tiny blips were moving towards us.

"It seems that the Gang Lord didn't take lightly to his platoon being destroyed so he sent his reinforcements. Those turrets are my ace in the hole if he decided to do something like this. I hope you weren't shot because ten times the amount of enemies is going to come over those hills soon and I lied about the turrets being useful for us. If I switch the turrets on they will not distinguish between friend or foe; Ten years ago there wasn't that kind of technology. If I switch it on, you will be shot too" she said taking a long drag on the cigarette and exhaled slowly.

"Fine, if everything goes down the tubes I'll have to take my chances.

Then a few of the blips detached from the mass and sped ahead. Over the crest of the crater hills raced attack ships. They were probably going to blow up the house. I used this opportunity to grab the larger machine gun in the room and put it down outside leaning on the war sled. It was difficult to get any hits on the ships as they were constantly moving about but I eventually managed taking out two of the four ships. That's about the time that my ammo ran out and they fired their rockets at the sled. These rockets were obviously honing in on me and it was going to be difficult to shake them off. I hoped on the sled and drove off the remnants of the green houses which after the first fight were broken or toppled over. To make matters worse the rockets were getting closer and the attack ships were firing at me, splintering glass at they shot. One of the glass houses had rolled over on its side like a ramp. I decided that I had a plan.

Driving out away from the green houses I made a wide arc. The rockets almost directly on me and pushed the sled as fast as I could towards the glass house. The constant fighting was dragging something mean out of me. Time was almost slowed as I hit the glass house roof ramping over it and under the two attack ships while the two missiles crashed into the first ship and the second ship crashed into the first. They died instantly while I rolled with the sled and smacked into a broken glass house cutting my face. Fate really liked messing with my face.

Bleeding and hurt I propped the sled upright and drove the now damaged sled to the house and collapsed on the ground. I didn't want to turn my head to look if the masses of enemies had arrived yet but luckily I didn't have to. The ground behind me exploded as they started their attack. Slowly I got up and took aim with the big gun. They really were foolish trying to attack in convoy as the big gun would wipe the smiles off all of their faces.

For the second time that day the bright light flashed out of the sky and smote most of the front lines of the army and all the tanks. Their advance stopped temporarily as the new advancing army came to terms with the fact that a lot of people just died. What I mean is that every person fired his rifle at the general direction of me in hoped of a glancing hit.

There definitely were a lot of people still left though and I used this fact to my advantage by firing into them with my rifle. It got to a point where I didn't have to look and I was shooting people down there were so many.

Their advance was still strong though and soon I had a few bullet wounds as I noted that these guys were better at shooting air then the previous guys. More and more of the dam soldiers were coming over the hills in an endless line. It was only then that I noticed a strange familiarity in all the troops. Most of them looked the same. Then it dawned on me, the clone factory was just pumping out people and more people. I then said on the radio.

"Miss Q I'm going to sneak out the back with the vehicle, these guys are clones and we'll never see the end of them if I don't blow up the facility. Can you handle them all on your own?"

"Boy don't you lecture me on my safety, I'll handle these boys." She replied.

Then she walked outside and started firing out from them towards the masses with two very big guns. I was going to ask her about a lot of things but seeing her mowing down the troops in Rambo fashion won the prize. I hopped on the sled and drove off away from the masses and over the hill. I then circled around the edge of the crater until I could see the long line of the cones marching towards the crater. So I started tracking the line to its source which was an opening in the ground where a large cave was, like most openings in the ground were. Getting in would be difficult if I wanted to do it stealthily, so I didn't.

I was flattening the fools and the ones that weren't dead didn't even react to attack me. The mowing down the defenseless clones, as I sped down the main chute was, really starting to break the front of the vehicle apart so; I decided weaving between the masses would be a better idea. Finally after traveling for some time downwards I came to a large room with rancid smells of death and decay. That must have been the clone manufacturing area. It had a large tank on each side with all sorts of boxes and tubes coming out in all directions with all the tubes which glowed a florescent green. Rows of clones were walking out in zombie fashion underneath the floor where they emerged out from a tunnel in the floor only to proceed to grab guns and walk to the exit tunnel. I parked my sled next to the main console ,which was basically an upright box with a keyboard on it and a holographically projected screen, and typed out the shutdown code (which in my language was shooting every valve and gasket I could find until the main machine was leaking and sparking everywhere).

I thought luck was finally giving me a chance until who ever was in charge finally clued up on my presence in the factory. It was a bit eerie as the clone production halted and all the cones in sight turned their expressionless faces towards me. I sensed that this would not end well for me as I jumped over and behind the console. If I acted any later then I did I would have been a dead man because they all simultaneously fired in my direction. Those things really where brainless as they wreaked more damage onto the main machine then I could have ever done. It was a disadvantage though that the green molten goo that the machine was oozing out was starting to get close to me and the clones showed no stopping in their barrage.

It seemed like a good time for a bit of trial and error as I banged on the back of the console and removed its metal plate. Grabbing random wires and sparking them together I heard all sorts of noises coming from the machine and the gun fire stopped. I heard massive running sounds all around me and feared the worst. The foot stomps died away with sharp door closing sound and I realized I was alone with the frothing, screeching machine. Climbing out and dusting myself off I walked to the sled. Those idiots were terrified of something and I had a feeling something bad was about to befall me. Turning around I looked at the message on the holo-screen and knew I was going to be very dead.


	6. Now what?

Chapter 5

Now what?

In green monotonous letters I saw a countdown; it was reaching the five minute mark. The sled was broken, the door was sealed, and the green goop had started to fill up around me so I was standing on the console which was starting to fizzle. My face was swollen from the heat. I had been sitting on the console stuck for about 5 minutes already. It was hardly comforting as the green goo rose higher and my shoes started to melt.

The countdown stopped not long after the goo was almost at the top of the console because the massive machine started sinking into the goo. This wasn't much of a relief as the goo rushed up to my ankles and, having no other alternative; I jumped onto the machine and proceeded to climb. By the time I got to the top, all the fake rubber skin on my arms and legs had melted off and some of the joints were starting to fuse together from both the heat and the expansion. The green goo was much further down now and my face now throbbed as it became difficult to see.

I tried to formulate a good plan but it was so hard to think as I felt my brain cooking inside my skull. After a while I tried lassoing some of the smaller broken tubes to catch onto the ceiling where many steel support beams were. It was a pity my aim was not enhanced by any cyborg implants because the green goo was halfway up the machine and rising while I was sinking faster and faster into the earth.

Then it struck me, why was I sinking? If the machine was made to survive the high temperatures inside surely it wouldn't melt so it had to be slipping into the ground. The planet has quite a soft ground texture so logically the hot goo was eating into the rock and wearing it away. The machine must have been restricting the flow of the stuff into the ground but it would definitely have flowed faster if I wiggled it about. Not having any alternative I jumped up and down on top of the machine trying to get it to break into the next cave. My efforts were rewarded by not in the way I expected.

The sound was distant at first and then suddenly the machine slid down into the ground taking me with it. Falling from a great height with no parachute isn't an experience you want to feel as you know that you're probably going to die. I didn't have the luxury of dieing as the machine tumbled and started to spin launching me off it and hitting me into the rock while it tumbled away with large cracking sounds. The lucky thing about the planet I was on was that the soil wasn't hard and it formed quite a steep angle when piled up. So as my unconscious body rolled down the side of the cave shaft I was spared dieing.

I escaped from a horrible death of melting only to wake up on a rocky outcrop against a rock, face down. In a dazed state I tried to get familiar with my surroundings using the following steps: I still have legs? Check. What's my middle name? I don't have one. Umm…check. Not dead yet? Check.

It seemed that the walls next to me glowed green as the horrid green stuff flowed down it. In front of me there was a large hole where the green liquid disappeared, it probably would be wise not to fall again. It seemed that I hadn't actually fallen as far as I thought as the opening above was giving me enough light to see by. Behind me was bare wall where I could see the various stains that my body exhibited and under me was a very familiar impression in the dirt of my face. Once again I had survived falling by landing on my face; someone must really hate my looks.

Tearing pieces of my shirt off to bandage up my head wound and wounds on my arm I noticed that my one leg was actually facing backwards but the foot part had swung forwards. It seemed that I was not completely competent yet but the increasing lines of liquid on the sides of the walls compelled me to do a quick fix of simply twisting back to the right shape. The walls had almost no handholds and the dirt that made a very comfortable landing was now prohibiting climbing. So instead of going up I decided that making my way to a tiny cave a little lower then me would be a good plan.

The lower ledges under me looked sturdy enough but they hardly where as I soon found out. So I jumped down onto the first one and felt the mound shift a bit. I had only two more to jump until my goal. I jumped onto the next one and my feet sank in. Not only that but the mound loosed itself more then the other did and was slowly starting to move. Acting fast I wriggled out and jumped onto the final one rolling into the tiny cave entrance.

Jumping wasn't hard with the broken leg, that it could do, it was just the walking movements were stiff and progression was slow. The cave smelled like rotten material from a garbage dump but it was by a slight margin better then the smell of the green stuff. It was very dark and I had to navigate by touching the walls. Slowly the way got lighter as I came to a section of the cave that appeared to have a vertical shaft running into it. It was only then that I noticed that the floor was lined with bits of waste matter and the shaft was in fact a garbage chute with its square metal shape.

So ironically for the second time in my life I had to squeeze through a garbage chute but this time the cyborg arms came in handy as I rather shoved my hands straight into the metal and created my own hand and foot holds. When I reached the exit of the chute I climbed out and collapsed on the floor breathing hard. Then wasting no time, I fell asleep.

Escape was simple enough when you count the fact that everyone thought you were dead. I was in the main eating chambers kitchen. Hearing thudding of footsteps from behind on of the chamber doors I walked closer. I opened the door a fraction and spied the activities on the other side. The clones were on the march again but this time they were heading back down the main chute. Being a bit stealthier then I usually would be, I opened the door and pulled a clone from the last row into the room. They really must have been brain dead to not do anything to resist. After steeling his clothes and his weapon, I stashed the body in the kitchen freezer and walked out into the main chute to join the march quickly where the other guy would have stood.

I stood at attention with everyone else as two suited officials prepared to open the doors. In one synchronized movement the clones aimed their guns, hastily I followed suit. The doors opened with smoke filling the room. A heat wave decimated the first 5 rows of the clones. After some of the clones were ordered to move the dead bodies the squad marched into the large room where my line went left and lined up against the wall with myself, being the last in line, next to the door. Then the two officials walked into the room and looked around with disgust.

"It seems that station 26 has had a melt down, these stupid idiotic clones had to shoot the thing to pieces," said one official to the other.

"At least the Undertaker is dead, Mr. Beagle will be pleased. What about the gang lord, has he killed Miss Q yet and taken the valuable property?" the other official asked.

"The clones are currently trying to kill her but they are encountering heavy resistance. It doesn't matter though because the satellite laser should be in range in thirty minutes."

"Excellent! Let's get back to the mansion to report in to the gang lord," the other replied as they both started to leave.

Quickly moving into he main chute with them and took the hood off the one while I simultaneously fired a gun blast into the others head. Then in a similar quick movement I put the gun onto the first ones head and fired. The two officials lay dead on the floor twitching while I took keys and various other useful items. I dragged them away and stole the suit without the hole in it. Driven by a stroke of genius I put the gun in the sleeve of the suit and walked up the chute to the world outside.

Their ship was sleek and blue and even in the dark it looked like it was meant to cut wind. The guards outside were clones and easy enough to dispatch of as my rifle did the talking. I took off into the night towards the mansion of the gang lord.


End file.
